In this article, we'll learn how to manage the access & permissions for your organization Insights.

In the ControlUp Real-Time Console, in the top pane, go to ControlUp Insights > User Permissions.

Another quick way to access 'Organization Properties' is right-clicking the root folder in the main folder structure and choose Organization Properties. (example below).

In the window above, we'll see all the users that are listed under your organization and, in the right column, who has access to Insights.

NOTE: If the column is grayed out, it means that you don't have permission to delegate control here.

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In the Security Policy pane, we can delegate permissions for the Organization Properties window.

Go into the Security Policy -> "Perform Wide-organization actions" - and you'll see two permissions associated with Insights (e.g. below) the two permissions and what they stand for is explained further on in this article.

NOTE: if the permissions in the Security Policy is grayed out as well, you're not authorized to manage the roles. Please go into Settings > Security and see who's the user\group who owns the "Roles Manager" part under the "Manage Roles Collections".

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ControlUp Insights - manage access settings -

This permissions sets who can access the settings window below and change settings regarding Insights such as enabling two-factor authentication, limit access based on IP ranges, Domain suffix & SSO and by that boost the security and tighten it on your Insights organization.

When denying users from these permissions, they will see these settings grayed out.

ControlUp Insights - manage user permissions -

This permission will set who can give\take control to users to access Insights.

The main function in this window is simply marking\taking off the V on the user you would like to grant\revoke access to Insights.

The objective of the Environment Assessment report is to aid administrators in monitoring resource usage in their organizations so that they can optimize resource allocations and identify problematic usage trends. The report presents aggregate data about resource allocation and consumption, activity trends, and other findings over the month preceding the report, updated to the minute at which the report was generated. This report brings together data that is available in different forms in other Insights reports, presenting it in ways that give the administrator a broader understanding of how these separate pieces of information relate to one another. Many items in the report contain links to other Insights reports that provide additional details about them.

Examples of questions this report is designed to answer are:

● Are the physical CPUs (pCPUs) allocated optimally among the virtual CPUs (vCPUs) in the organization?● Which host software is in use on the host machines in the organization?● Which operating systems are in use on the client machines in the organization?● How long do typical sessions last?● Which applications are used most by users in the organization?● Which users use the most resources?● Has there been any abnormal resource usage in the past month?Data included in this report is only from those computers on which the ControlUp Agent is installed and running.

Functionality of Elements in WidgetsThis report is essentially read-only. Nonetheless, some elements in the widgets of the report do provide additional functionality:

● Graphs: Place your mouse cursor over any location on a graph to open a tooltip in which the value represented by that location is shown

Tooltip for a location on a sparkline

● Donut charts: Place your mouse cursor on one of the colored sections of the outer circle of a donut chart (or on one of the items listed below the circle); the value in the center of the circle changes to the quantity of items represented by that color. For example, in the chart below, the cursor is on the pink part of the outer circle, and the center of the circle shows how many host computers are running under the version of the vSphere software represented by pink.

Cursor on the pink section of a donut chart

● Links: If text in the report changes color when you hover over it, the text is a link to another report that can give additional details.

Link to Host Trends report

● Keys to bar graphs: In addition to explaining the color-coding in bar graphs, the keys below the graphs can also be used to show or hide data in the graphs:

♦ Select the colored box beside an item in the key to remove it from the graph. The box turns gray when the item is removed. Select the gray box to show the item in the graph again.All items hidden except for “Active”

♦ Hover over an item in the key to emphasize all of the data points for that item, so that you can see them better.

Data points of disconnected sessions emphasized

● Hidden text: If text is hidden because of insufficient space, hover over the text to open a tooltip showing the complete text.

Tooltip showing hidden text

Sections of the Report

This report is composed of three sections:

● Section 1: Summary of information about the data set of the report● Section 2: Aggregate data about resource-usage trends in the organization● Section 3: Details about high or exceptional resource usage by individual consumers of resources

Section 1: Resources Included in the Report

The top section of the Environment Assessment report contains summary information about the resources and consumers of resources included in the report.

Section 1: Summary information

The following information is included in this section of the report:

1. Total Hosts: The number of virtualization hosts (servers on which virtual machines – VMs – ran) that were included in the ControlUp Agent’s monitoring at any time during the month.This widget will not be available if there no monitored hypervisors.2. vCPU/pCPU Ratio on Hosts: The average ratio, over the month, of virtual CPUs (vCPUs) to physical cores (pCPUs) on the monitored host machines.This widget will not be available if there no monitored hypervisors

For each host machine, the ControlUp Agent collects information about the number of virtual CPUs (vCPUs) assigned to VMs running on the machine, and the number of physical cores (pCPUs) on the machine. It stores this information as a ratio. The value given here is the average of all of these ratios, from all of the monitored virtualization-host machines, over the past month.This widget will not be available if there no monitored hypervisors.

3. Total VMs: The number of virtual machines that ran on the host machines during the month

4. Managed Computers: The total number of computers in the organization that were monitored by the ControlUp Agent during the month

5. Unique Client Names: The total number of client machines (endpoints) that were utilized by users to establish sessions during the month

6. Unique Users: The total number of distinct users who used client machines to establish sessions during the month

7. Total Sessions: The total number of client sessions that were initiated by users during the month

8. Total Applications: The total number of unique applications users opened during the month. A unique application is a unique combination of a process name (e.g., cmd.exe) and a version number (e.g., 10.014393.0).

Section 2: Aggregate Data

The middle section of the Environment Assessment report presents aggregate data about resource usage over the previous month. The following widgets are included in this part of the report:

1. Hosts - Resource Usage Trends: This widget shows the average usage levels of four kinds of host resources – CPU, RAM, Disk I/O, and network bandwidth – across all the monitored virtualization hosts.The sparklines plot the average values for each three-hour period in the month, while the right column shows the average of all of these three-hour periods. Select the name of a resource (e.g., CPU or RAM) to open a detailed report for that resource in a new tab. Hover over points on the sparklines to see individual data points.This widget will not be available if there no monitored hypervisors.

Hosts - Resource Usage Trends widget

2. Host Versions: This chart shows which types and versions of Hypervisor software were running on the host computers. The center of the donut chart shows the total number of host computers. The proportion of computers with each Hypervisor version is presented graphically in the outer circle of the chart, and numerically below the chart.This widget will not be available if there no monitored hypervisors.

Host Versions widget

3. Computers - Resource Usage Trends: This widget shows the average usage levels of four kinds of computer resources – CPU, RAM, Disk I/O, and network bandwidth – across all the monitored computers. The sparklines plot the average values for each three-hour period in the month, while the right column displays the average of all of these three-hour periods. Select the name of a resource (e.g., CPU or RAM) to open a detailed report for that resource in a new tab (or window). Hover over points in the sparklines to see individual three-hour averages.Computers - Resource Usage Trends widget

4. Computers – OS Distribution: This chart shows which operating systems were running on the monitored computers in the organization. The center of the donut chart shows the total number of computers. The proportion of computers with each operating system is represented graphically in the outer circle of the chart, and numerically below the chart.Computers – OS Distribution widget

5. Sessions - Resource Usage Trends: This widget provides information about the average resource usage per session for all the active sessions that took place during the month. It presents data for the following types of resources:

● Active sessions: The average number of simultaneous active sessions● Logon duration: The average duration of the logon process of the sessions, measured from the time the user initiated the logon to the time the session was connected, in seconds● Bandwidth: The average protocol bandwidth usage of the sessions● Latency: The average protocol latency of the sessions

The sparklines plot the average values for each three-hour period in the month, while the right column displays the average of all of these three-hour periods.

Select the name of a resource (e.g., Active Sessions or Latency) to open a detailed report for that resource in a new tab (or window). Hover over points in the sparklines to see individual three-hour averages.

Sessions - Resource Usage Trends widget

6. Sessions per Branch: This chart shows the total number of user sessions that took place in each branch (geographical location) of the organization during the past month. The center of the donut chart shows the total number of sessions. The proportion of sessions in each branch is represented graphically in the outer circle of the chart, and numerically below the chart.

Sessions per Branch widget

Applications - Top 10 by Popularity: This widget shows the ten applications that were used the most in the organization during the past month, based on how many unique instances of the application there were (i.e., how many times it was opened).Each application is represented by a box. The size of each box indicates how many unique users opened the application, while the color of the box shows how many instances of the application were created during the month. A key for the color-coding appears below the boxes.

To see the exact numbers of users and instances for an application, hover over its box.

Applications - Top 10 by Popularity widget, with details about one of the applications displayed in a tooltip

8. Sessions - Count by Session Status: This chart shows the total number of user sessions that were open during each three-hour period, categorized by their session status (active, idle, disconnected, or other).

Select Go to Sessions Count to open the User Sessions Count report, with the parameters set to show data from the past month across the entire organization.Sessions - Count by Session Status widget

9. Users by Usage widget: This chart shows the distribution of unique users by their average session load. The load is derived from the user’s CPU and RAM usage, both of which are divided into four categories, based on the following thresholds:

Each user is assigned the highest category of usage they reached – either for CPU or for RAM. That is, if the user was in the Heavy category for CPU usage, and the Extra Heavy category for RAM usage, they are assigned the Extra Heavy category. Users by Usage widget

10. Computers by Assigned Resources widget: This chart shows the distribution of monitored computers by the amount of hardware resources allocated to them. The computers are categorized in accordance with their CPU and RAM allocations, both of which are divided into four categories, based on the following thresholds:

Each computer is assigned the highest category it reached – either for CPU or for RAM allocation. That is, if the computer was in the Heavy category for CPU allocation, and the Extra Heavy category for RAM allocation, it is assigned the Extra Heavy category.

Computers by Assigned Resources widget

11. Computers by Usage widget: This chart shows the distribution of monitored computers by the amount of hardware resources they used. The computers are categorized in accordance with their CPU and RAM usage, both of which are divided into four categories, based on the following thresholds:

Each computer is assigned the highest category of usage it reached – either for CPU usage or for RAM usage. That is, if the computer was in the Heavy category for CPU usage, and the Extra Heavy category for RAM usage, it is assigned the Extra Heavy category.Computers by Usage widget

12. Hosts - CPU Usage widget: This chart shows the total CPU usage of all of the virtualization-host machines combined, in GHz, as a proportion of the CPU that was available in the organization.

Select Go to Host Trends to open the Host Trends report, with the parameters set to show data from the past month across the entire organization. This widget will not be available if there no monitored hypervisorsHosts - CPU Usage widget

13. Hosts - RAM Usage widget: This chart shows the total RAM usage of all of the virtualization-host machines combined, in GB, as a proportion of the RAM that was available in the organization.

Select Go to Host Trends to open the Host Trends report, with the parameters selected to show data from the past month across the entire organization. This widget will not be available if there no monitored hypervisors.Hosts - RAM Usage widget

14. Computers - CPU Usage widget: This chart shows the total CPU usage of all of the computers in the organization combined, in GHz, as a proportion of the CPU that was available in the organization.

The last section of the Environment Assessment report presents data about high or exceptional resource usage over the previous month.

The row of widgets in section 3

The row in this section contains four widgets, one for each type of resource consumer – virtualization hosts, computers, users, and applications. Information about these consumers’ usage of each type of resource (CPU, RAM, etc.) is displayed in separate tabs within each widget. Bar graphs in each tab illustrate the quantities these top consumers utilized, with the consumers listed in descending order based on these quantities. The consumption level of the top consumer in each tab also appears as a numerical value; the numerical values of the other consumers can be viewed by hovering over their bars in the bar graph.

The Hosts - Top Consumers by Resource widget will not be available if there no monitored hypervisors.

By default, the CPU tab is selected in all of the widgets. To select a different resource, click its tab.

The “Top Insights” page is intended to summarize the key findings regarding the state of your monitored resources by means of showing information tiles we’ll call insights. The insights shown in this page are powered by a nightly search that scans all the activity recorded by ControlUp in your environment during the previous day.

The insights shown on this page provide answers to questions such as:

How many sessions were there yesterday?

How is the daily session count different from the normal trend?

On what servers there’s a critical free disk space problem?

Were there any new applications running on the monitored computers?

Who were the top CPU consuming users?

The following additional functionality is offered:

Clicking on any insight will lead to the relevant report, showing more details. By default, the target reports will focus on the previous day.

For example, clicking on the following insight:

Will switch to the Sessions Activity report showing all user sessions established on your monitored computers yesterday

Some insights will display a trend indicator which compares yesterday’s data to the average measurement obtained in your organization on the same weekday during the last 5 weeks.

For example, the following indicator shown on Tuesday:

Means that Monday’s measurement was 57% higher than the average of the last five Mondays.

Some insights will display a trend indicator which compares yesterday’s data to the global average.

For example, the following indicator in the Average Logon Duration

Means that yesterday’s average is <X> percents higher than the global average logon duration.

Some insights will only appear when a specific condition is detected in your organization, for example when a new application is detected. If the same condition is not detected on the following day, the insight will not appear.

Insights can be rearranged so that the more relevant tiles are displayed on top

Insights that are irrelevant or of little value can be minimized by clicking on the upper right hand side

The objective of this report is to aid administrators in optimizing resource allocations among monitored computers. It presents analyses of CPU and RAM usage over the past month based on the data that was collected by ControlUp Agents running on the monitored computers. Included in this report are recommendations for optimizing the CPU and RAM allocations of each computer. These recommendations are derived from the usage data of the entire month, using an algorithm that adds a 15% buffer to the 95th percentile of usage values recorded over that time period. Examples of questions this report is designed to answer are:

What is the best allocation of the available CPU cores and RAM among the organization’s computers?

Does computer X have sufficient resources available to run its workload?

Can CPU cores that are currently allocated to computer X be reallocated to other computers?

Are there computers in the system that can perform their required functions with a single CPU core?

Sections of the Report

This report is divided into four sections:

Section 1: Report parameter

Section 2: Summary information about the number of monitored computers

Section 3: Aggregate data for all of the monitored computers in the selected folder

Section 4: Detailed information about individual computers

Section 1: Report Parameter

Section 1 of the report contains a folder dropdown list with which you can select the scope of the report (by default entire organization is selected).

Section 1: Folder dropdown list

Section 2: Number of Computers

Section 2 of the report presents information about the number of computers on which the findings in the report are based.Data included in this report is only from those computers on which the ControlUp Agent is installed and running.

Section 2: Number of computers

Section 3: Aggregate Data

Aggregate data is presented in section 3 of the report. The calculations are based on the CPU and RAM usage data retrieved by the ControlUp Agents running on each machine. The Agents retrieve this information every three seconds, and use it to calculate average usage for each five-minute period. They retain these average usage values for a month after they are generated; it is these average values that are used to calculate resource usage in this report.Note: Because a single CPU core cannot be divided into parts, all non-integer CPU values are rounded up to the next larger integer.

Section 3: Aggregate data

The aggregate data is presented in ten widgets, five for CPU usage and five for RAM usage, as follows:1. Computers by CPU sizing: This chart shows the distribution of the computers in the selected folder by their CPU sizing status:

Over: The computers to which more CPU resources are allocated than necessary

Right: The computers whose CPU resources are optimal

Under: The computers to which less CPU resources are allocated than necessary

The center of the donut chart shows the total number of computers in the selected folder. The proportion of computers with each status is represented graphically in the outer circle of the chart, and numerically below the chart.

2. CPUs by utilization: This chart shows the proportion of the CPUs in the selected folder that were utilized during the sample period. The center of the donut chart shows the total assigned CPUs in the selected folder.

3. Top sizing groups by CPU ranges: This chart shows the distribution of the computers in the selected folder by CPU sizing status, broken down by their CPU sizing findings. The outer circle of the donut chart contains a colored region for each combination of findings. For example, it may include a region for computers whose sizing status is “Over” that have 1 or 2 over-allocated CPUs, and another region for computers whose sizing status is “Over” that have 3 or 4 over-allocated CPUs.

4. Global benchmark: This widget shows how the level of CPU resource utilization in your organization compares with that of all other ControlUP customers.

5. Avg. used/assigned CPUs: This widget shows the average number of utilized CPUs per computer as a proportion of the average number of CPUs assigned per computer in the selected folder.

6. Computers by RAM sizing: This chart shows the distribution of the computers in the selected folder by their RAM sizing status:

Over: The computers to which more RAM resources are allocated than necessary

Right: The computers whose RAM resources are optimal

Under: The computers to which less RAM resources are allocated than necessary

The center of the donut chart shows the number of computers. The proportion of computers with each status is represented graphically in the outer circle of the chart, and numerically below the chart.

7.RAM by utilization: This chart shows the proportion of the RAM in the selected folder that was utilized during the sample period. The center of the donut chart shows the total assigned RAM in the selected folder.

8. Top sizing groups by RAM ranges: This chart shows the distribution of the computers by RAM sizing status, broken down by their RAM sizing findings. The outer circle of the donut chart contains a colored region for each combination of findings. For example, it may include one colored region for computers whose RAM sizing status is “Over” that have 1-25 GB of over-allocated RAM, and another region for computers whose sizing status is “Over” that have 25-50 GB of over-allocated RAM.

9. Global benchmark: This widget shows how the RAM utilization in your organization compares with that of all other ControlUP customers.

10. Avg. used/assigned RAM: This widget shows the average amount of utilized RAM per computer as a proportion of the average amount of RAM assigned per computer in the selected folder.

Additional functionality of donut charts:• Place the mouse cursor on one of the colored sections of the outer circle of a donut chart; the value in the center of the circle changes to the quantity represented by that color. For example, in the chart below, the cursor is on the pink part of the outer circle, and the center of the circle shows how many computers have the status represented by pink (“Over”).

Cursor on the pink section of a donut chart

Section 4: Data per Computer

Information about each monitored computer in the selected folder, including recommended changes to the resources allocated to it, is presented individually in section 4. Calculations in this section are based on the usage data retrieved by the ControlUp Agents running on each of the monitored computers.

The usage data retrieved by the Agents is given in percentages. For example, 50% means 50% of assigned CPUs were in use when the Agent retrieved the information at a particular time.

Section 4: Data table with a row for each PC

Recommendations in this table are calculated using the following algorithm:

From the usage data collected by the ControlUp Agent, throw out the 5% most extreme values. That is, retain only the 95% of the values that are closest to the median value.

Add a 15% buffer to the highest value retained (i.e., the 95% percentile value). That is, multiply the value by 1.15.

Multiply the value by the number of CPU cores – or the amount of RAM –currently allocated to the computer. The result is the recommended value.

Note: For CPU calculations, the result is rounded up to the next integer (because a single CPU core cannot be divided into parts).

4. CPUs Recommendation: The change in CPU allocation required for optimization5. Assigned RAM: The amount of RAM currently allocated to the computer6. Suggested RAM: The optimal amount of RAM to allocate to the computer7. RAM Recommendation: The change in RAM allocation required for optimization

Additional functionality of the usage table:

By default, the table is sorted by the CPUs Recommendation column. To sort the table by a different column, click the header of the column. Click the header a second time to reverse the sort order. The column that is currently the basis for the sorting has a blue triangle displayed in its header. The sorting direction (up or down) is indicated by the direction the triangle is pointing.Blue triangle in column header

To filter the table, click the icon in the header of the column by which you want to filter it, and then select Filter. Configure the filter settings, and then select the Filter button to activate them. When a filter is active, the icon in the header is blue.Blue icon in column header

To see more details about the resource usage of a computer listed in the table, click its row. The row expands and graphs of the usage levels of the CPU and the RAM over the past month are displayed. Each graph contains three curves, representing the actual usage and allocations over the past month, and the recommended allocation. The resolution of these graphs is one usage value per hour. Each value is the average value for that hour, based on the data supplied by the ControlUp Agent. In addition, average and 95th percent usage statistics are displayed beside the graphs. These values are derived from the usage over the entire period covered by the graph.

Accessing ControlUp Insights

ControlUp Insights can be accessed using a dedicated button on the Home ribbon of ControlUp Console.

ControlUp Insights is also accessible directly by URL https://insights.controlup.com. When browsing to this URL manually, the single sign-on mechanism is not activated and a valid ControlUp email and password need to be provided.

In order to ensure the security of your data stored in ControlUp Insights, access to the portal is allowed exclusively to the user who first installed and configured ControlUp on your network. To configure user access permissions for your colleagues, click on the Manage User Access button on the ControlUp Insights ribbon:

You will be presented with the Organization Properties dialog box which contains the list of users in your ControlUp organization.

You can enable access to ControlUp Insights on a per-user basis by checking the checkbox in the “Permitted to use ControlUp Insights” column of the table. In addition, you can control the default access level for newly created users by using the “Allow new members of this organization to access ControlUp Insights” checkbox at the bottom of the dialog.

Additional Security Settings for ControlUp Insights

You can enhance the security of ControlUp Insights access for users in your organization by configuring additional security settings. Click on the Access Settings button on the ControlUp Insights ribbon to access those settings:

The following security settings are available for configuration:

Two-factor authentication – ControlUp Insights can be configured to require the user to provide an authentication code which is sent to the user during sign-in. The code may be sent by using the email address registered with the user’s ControlUp account, and also by means of a mobile push notification sent to a mobile device on which the ControlUp Mobile App has been installed and activated.

Email domain restriction – You can provide a list of email domains as an additional form of validation for any ControlUp Insights user in your organization. Since ControlUp requires every user to confirm ownership of the email address by activating their account, you can use this option to ensure that portal access is allowed exclusively for users with a valid organizational email address. When used in tandem with two-factor authentication, this option provides an additional layer of validation for the user’s authenticity.

Source IP restriction – You can provide a list of IP addresses or IP address ranges from which your colleagues are expected to access ControlUp Insights. By providing a list of public IP addresses owned by legitimate corporate locations, you reduce the attack surface of ControlUp Insights and ensure that the portal is only accessed from authorized locations.

Single Sign-On – this mechanism is used to leverage your existing ControlUp credentials to sign you on automatically, without the need to provide a username and password. Single Sign-On is activated when the ControlUp Insights button on the Home ribbon is clicked. This setting allows for disabling the Single Sign-On mechanism and requiring all users to provide a valid email and password when signing in.

User Sessions Count

The objective of this report is to allow the administrator to analyze the system usage trends by displaying the number of user sessions established in the network at any point in time, along with the historical distribution of sessions by status. This report will answer questions such as:

How many users were logged into the system at 10:00 AM on Monday?

How many disconnected sessions are left on the servers at the end of a workday?

The first “Total sessions and computers” chart displays the number of concurrent user sessions and the number of monitored computers for the selected time period (1 week by default). This graph includes two data series:

Total user sessions – the total count of user sessions established on all monitored computers in the selected folders (entire organization by default)

Connected computers – the total count of monitored computers on which the user sessions were established

The number of computers is a useful reference, which may help explain changes to the total number of user sessions. For example, if new servers were added for monitoring, you will see an increase in both the computers count and the user sessions count.

The second “Sessions count by status” displays the historical distribution of all user sessions by status (active, idle, disconnected). This report includes four data series:

Active sessions

Idle sessions

Disconnected sessions

Other sessions

The following additional functionality is offered by this report:

The folder selection dropdown allows for focusing the result of the report on a folder in your ControlUp organization. By default, data for the entire organization is shown.

Any data point can be clicked to reveal the minimum, average, and maximum values for any data series.

The series names in the charts legends can be clicked to highlight or toggle the series on the charts.

User Sessions Activity

The objective of this report is to allow the administrator to analyze the activity of end users in the monitored system by showing properties of all user sessions that were recorded during the selected time period (last 24 hours by default). This report will answer questions such as:

Which sessions did John Doe establish on the system yesterday?

Who are the users logging in from the 10.15.x.x subnet in the past week?

Who are the users suffering from the slowest logins in the past month?

The data grid in this report displays the following details for every user session:

User name – the Windows username of the session’s owner

Computer name – the target computer on which the session was established

Session ID – the Windows identifier for the session

Logon time – the time on which the session was established (the beginning of the logon process)

Logoff time – this column might display one of the following values:

The time when the user session was terminated

“Still Active” if the user session was still active when last detected by ControlUp

A timestamp with an information “i" icon means that the exact session logoff time is unknown to ControlUp. For example, this might occur if a user ­session is established on a monitored laptop, and then the user takes the laptop offsite and logs the session off when the computer is not monitored.

Session duration – the time elapsed between the logon time and the logoff time

Logon duration – the time elapsed between successful user authentication and the time when the desktop was fully initialized or a published application started

Max latency – the maximum protocol latency recorded during the session lifetime

Initial program – the published application name (if used)

Initial client name – the name of the computer from which the session was initiated

Initial client IP – the IP address of the computer from which the session was initiated (Available in Insights Online only)

Initial receiver version – the software version of Citrix Receiver (if used) using which the session was initiated

Active time – the percentage of time (of total session lifetime) during which the session was in the Active state and was idle for less than 30 minutes

Idle time – the percentage of time (of total session lifetime) during which the session was idle for at least 30 minutes

Disconnected time – the percentage of time (of total session lifetime) during which the session was in the Disconnected state

Profile load time – the time elapsed during the process of loading the user’s profile (part of the logon duration period)

Group Policy load time – the time elapsed during user group policy initialization (part of the logon duration period)

Desktop load time – the time elapsed during the initialization of the desktop shell (part of the logon duration period)

Logon duration (other) – the time elapsed during the initialization of other logon components (third-party printing and profile management solutions)

User logon server – the name of the Active Directory domain controller which was used to authenticate the user

By default, the grid is sorted by logoff time in descending order.

The following additional functionality is offered by this report:

The folder selection dropdown allows for focusing the result of the report on a folder in your ControlUp organization. By default, data for the entire organization is shown.

Any user name can be clicked to display the details of the selected user session by linking to the Session Details report. For more details, see below.

All columns can be sorted by clicking on the column header

All columns can be filtered by clicking the filter icon in the column header

The number of items displayed in the grid can be controlled by using the “items per page” dropdown at the bottom of the grid

User Session Details

The objective of this report is to allow the administrator to analyze the details of a specific user session by showing the user’s activity, along with the distribution of resources consumed by this activity during the session’s lifetime. This report answers questions such as:

Which applications did Jane Doe launch during her session yesterday afternoon?

How was the CPU affected by the user’s launching a business application at 4:00 PM?

Can slowness reported by the user around 9:00 AM be attributed to a resource bottleneck caused by the user’s applications or to other activity on the same server?

This report is not accessible directly from the left menu of ControlUp Insights. It can be accessed only by clicking a row in the Sessions Activity report.

Below the header, the Session Details report features a Gantt chart of the user’s activity over time. This chart includes the following activities:

User logon

Session state transitions

Transitions between different client computers

Applications launched by the user

Background processes launched in the session (not displayed by default, can be enabled by checking the “Show background processes” checkbox in the top right area of the report)

Below the Gantt chart, this report displays a series of performance metrics charts which are intended to provide a means of correlating user activity with changes in resource consumption over time. The following charts are shown:

CPU Utilization (percentage of total computer CPU)

RAM Utilization (in Gigabytes)

I/O Utilization (in IOPS)

Protocol latency (in ms)

The distinction between the user and computer series enables the administrator to identify any irregular CPU consumption and attribute it to either the user’s activity, or to load generated by other users or background services on the same computer.

The following additional functionality is offered by this report:

Any data point in the charts can be clicked to reveal the minimum, average, and maximum values for any data series.

When clicked, any data point in the CPU, RAM and I/O charts will reveal the top consumers for that counter at the given point in time.

The series names in the charts legends can be clicked to highlight or toggle the series on the charts.

The objective of this report is to allow the administrator to analyze resource consumption of user sessions by summarizing performance metrics of all user sessions that were recorded during the selected time period (last 24 hours by default). This report will answer questions such as:

What user sessions had the highest CPU consumption?

What sessions had the most intensive memory usage?

What were the most I/O-intensive user sessions?

The data grid in this report displays the following details for every user session:

User name – the Windows username of the session’s owner

Computer name – the target computer on which the session was established

Session ID – the Windows identifier for the session

Logon time – the time on which the session was established (the beginning of the logon process)

Logoff time – this column might display one of the following values:

The time when the user session was terminated

“Still Active” if the user session was still active when last detected by ControlUp

A timestamp with an information “i" icon means that the exact session logoff time is unknown to ControlUp. For example, this might occur if a user ­session is established on a monitored laptop, and then the user takes the laptop offsite and logs the session off when the computer is not monitored.

Session duration – the time elapsed between the logon time and the logoff time

Active time - Percentage of time during which the session was in the active state

CPU Usage - The total CPU usage for all processes inside the user's session.

RAM Usage - The total RAM consumption for all processes inside the user's session.

I/O Usage (IOPS) - The total I/O usage for all processes inside the user's session.

The following additional functionality is offered by this report:

The folder selection dropdown allows for focusing the result of the report on a folder in your ControlUp organization. By default, data for the entire organization is shown.

The metrics dropdown allows to choose what metrics to display – average, minimum or maximum. By default, the average metrics are shown.

Any user name can be clicked to display the details of the selected user session by linking to the Session Details report. For more details, see below.

Any computer name can be clicked to display the resource consumption trends of the selected computer by linking to the Computer Trends report. For more details, see below.

All columns can be sorted by clicking on the column header.

All columns can be filtered by clicking the filter icon in the column header.

The number of items displayed in the grid can be controlled by using the “items per page” dropdown at the bottom of the grid.

The objective of this report is to allow the administrator to analyze user experience metrics for user sessions that were recorded during the selected time period (last 24 hours by default). This report will answer questions such as:

Which users suffered from “bad” user experience?

Which sessions were slow to log on or experienced a high protocol latency?

What was the average load time of applications launched inside the session?

The data grid in this report displays the following details for every user session:

User name – the Windows username of the session’s owner

User Full Name - The display name of the user object in Active Directory

Computer name – the target computer on which the session was established

Session ID – the Windows identifier for the session

Logon time – the time on which the session was established (the beginning of the logon process)

Logoff time – this column might display one of the following values:

The time when the user session was terminated

“Still Active” if the user session was still active when last detected by ControlUp

A timestamp with an information “i" icon means that the exact session logoff time is unknown to ControlUp. For example, this might occur if a user ­session is established on a monitored laptop, and then the user takes the laptop offsite and logs the session off when the computer is not monitored.

Logon duration – the time elapsed between successful user authentication and the time when the desktop was fully initialized or a published application started

Avg. App Load Time – Average load time for all monitored applications started in the session

Logon Duration

This report is designed to allow the administrator to analyze the performance of the logon process by showing the distribution of the logon duration value in the different phases of logon. The Logon Duration report also allows for comparing the organizational logon duration statistics to average metrics gathered from the ControlUp Insights global community. This report can answer questions such as:

How fast is the logon process in my network perform compared to the global average?

What is the difference between the logon duration in peak and off-peak hours?

Which phase of the logon process accounts for the largest share of the total logon duration?

The report displays the following charts:

Logon duration – the average duration of the entire logon process

Number of user logons – the amount of user sessions started at each time period.

Profile load time – the average duration of the user profile load phase

Group Policy load time – the average duration of the user Group Policy load phase

Desktop load time – the average duration of the desktop initialization phase

Logon duration – other – the average duration of the phase during which other components are initialized, such as logon scripts and third-party profile management solutions

The following additional functionality is offered by this report:

The slider above the Gantt chart can be adjusted to focus on a specific time period during the session lifetime.

Any data point in the charts can be clicked to reveal the minimum, average, and maximum values for any data series.

When clicked, any data point in the CPU, RAM and I/O charts will reveal the top consumers for that counter at the given point in time.

The series names in the charts legends can be clicked to highlight or toggle the series on the charts.

The following additional functionality is offered by this report:

The folder selection dropdown allows for focusing the result of the report on a folder in your ControlUp organization. By default, data for the entire organization is shown.

The computers selection dropdown allows for focusing the result of the report on specific computers in your ControlUp organization.

Hovering on any data point in the chart reveals the minimum, average, and maximum values for any data series, as well as the number of samples on which the statistics are based.

The series names in the charts legends can be clicked to highlight or toggle the series on the charts.

Here are few screenshots taken from the Logon Duration Report:

The objective of this report is to allow the administrator to analyze display protocol latency and protocol bandwidth consumption for user sessions. This report will answer questions such as:

What is the average latency and bandwidth of my network in a certain point in time?

Which branch locations are experiencing high latency or high bandwidth usage issues?

Are there specific times of day during which latency is high?

By default, if no branches were defined, the chart in this report displays the distribution of average latency for all user sessions in your network over time. In case the organization has multiple branches defined, one or more branched should be chosen from the branches dropdown.

The following additional functionality is offered by this report:

The folder selection dropdown allows for focusing the result of the report on a folder in your ControlUp organization. By default, data for the entire organization is shown. Please note that this selector will filter the list of branches from which the remote sessions were established.

By using the branches dropdown, you can display separate lines for every branch location configured in your ControlUp organization. To define branch location by IP address, open the Branch Mapping Settings tab of the Settings window in ControlUp Console.

Any data point can be clicked to display the average, minimum and maximum latency and bandwidth, and also the top influencers/consumers on a certain data-point.

Clicking on each user name will switch to the “Session - Details” report, allows further investigation of the chosen session’s activity.

Computer Trends

The objective of this report is to allow the administrator to analyze resource consumption trends for monitored computers by displaying the distribution of performance metrics for different computers over time. This report answers questions such as:

What was the average CPU utilization in the server farm this morning?

What was the peak I/O utilization of SERVER05 yesterday?

Which process was accountable for irregular RAM consumption on the file server?

This report displays the following charts:

CPU Utilization – displays the average CPU utilization of the selected computers (by default, for the entire organization)

RAM Utilization – displays the average RAM utilization of the selected computers

I/O Utilization – displays the average read and write I/O utilization for the selected computers

Network Usage – displays the average sent and received network usage for the selected computers

The following additional functionality is offered by this report:

This report may display data in two modes, configurable using a drop-down at the top of the report:

One line per folder – each series on each chart represents a specific ControlUp folder

One line per computer – each series on each chart represents a specific computer

The folder selection dropdown allows for focusing the result of the report on a folder in your ControlUp organization. By default, data for the entire organization is shown.

The computers selection dropdown allows for focusing the result of the report on specific computers in your ControlUp organization.

Any data point in the charts can be clicked to reveal the minimum, average, and maximum values for any data series.

When clicked, any data point in the charts will reveal the top consumers for that counter at the given point in time.

The series names in the charts legends can be clicked to highlight or toggle the series on the charts.

Here are screenshots taken from the Computer Trends Report:

The objective of this report is to allow the administrator to analyze resource consumption for monitored computers by summarizing performance metrics per computer for a period of time. This report answers questions such as:

· What computers have the highest CPU consumption?

· What computers have the highest disk read/write latency?

· What computers are running out of disk space?

· Which computers are underutilizing their provisioned RAM?

The data grid in this report displays the following details for every computer:

1. Computer name - the target computer on which the session was established

8. Disk Read Time (ms) - For all local disks, the average time, in milliseconds, of a read data from the disk. (Avg. Disk sec / Read performance counter)

9. Disk Write Time (ms) - For all local disks, the average time, in milliseconds, of a write of data to the disk. (Avg. Disk sec / Write performance counter)

10. Free Space on System Drive - The amount of free space available on the system drive.

11. Net Total (Mbps) - The rate at which data is sent and received over all Ethernet adapters, including framing characters. Net Total is based on the ‘Bytes Total/sec’ performance counter which is the sum of the values of Network InterfaceBytes Received/sec and Network Interface Bytes Sent/sec, converted to Mbps.

12. User Sessions - Number of concurrent user sessions on the machine, not including the system and services sessions.

By default, the grid is sorted by CPU in descending order.

The following additional functionality is offered by this report:

· The folder selection dropdown allows for focusing the result of the report on a folder in your ControlUp organization. By default, data for the entire organization is shown.

· The metrics dropdown allows to choose what metrics to display – average, minimum or maximum. By default, the average metrics are shown.

· Any computer name can be clicked to display the resource consumption trends of the selected computer by linking to the Computer Trends report.

· All columns can be sorted by clicking on the column header.

· All columns can be filtered by clicking the filter icon in the column header.

· The number of items displayed in the grid can be controlled by using the “items per page” dropdown at the bottom of the grid.

Host Trends

The objective of this report is to allow the administrator to analyze resource consumption trends for virtualization hosts by displaying the distribution of performance metrics for different hosts over time. This report answers questions such as:

What was the average CPU utilization in the vSphere cluster this morning?

What was the peak I/O utilization of HOST05 yesterday?

Which VM was accountable for irregular RAM consumption on one of the hosts?

This report displays the following charts:

CPU Utilization – displays the average CPU utilization of the selected hosts (by default, for the entire organization)

RAM Utilization – displays the average RAM utilization of the selected hosts

I/O Utilization – displays the average I/O utilization for the selected hosts

I/O Latency – displays the average read and write I/O latency for the selected hosts

Network Usage – displays the average sent and received network usage for the selected hosts

The following additional functionality is offered by this report:

This report may display data in two modes, configurable using a drop-down at the top of the report:

One line per folder – each series on each chart represents a specific ControlUp folder

One line per host – each series on each chart represents a specific host

The folder selection dropdown allows for focusing the result of the report on a folder in your ControlUp organization. By default, data for the entire organization is shown.

The hosts selection dropdown allows for focusing the result of the report on specific hosts in your ControlUp organization.

Any data point in the charts can be clicked to reveal the minimum, average, and maximum values for any data series.

When clicked, any data point in the charts will reveal the top consumers for that counter at the given point in time.

The series names in the charts legends can be clicked to highlight or toggle the series on the charts.

The objective of this report is to allow the administrator to analyze resource consumption for monitored hosts by summarizing performance metrics per computer for a period of time. This report answers questions such as:

What hosts have the highest CPU consumption?

What hosts have the highest disk read/write latency?

The data grid in this report displays the following details for every computer:

Host name - the target computer on which the session was established

Version – Hypervisor version

CPU Cores – Total number of CPU cores on the host

Installed Memory – The amount of physically installed RAM on the host

vCPU/pCPU Ratio – Shows the ration of the total number of vCPUs assigned to all VMs running on a host, to the number of physical cores

CPU Usage – Actively used CPU cycles of the host as a percentage of the total available CPU cycles on the host

Consumed Memory – Includes memory used by the Service Console, the VMkernel, vSphere services plus the total consumed metrics for all running virtual machines

Running VM Count – Number of VMs running on this host

Datastore R/W IOPS – Aggregated number of IO operations on the datastore. The value displayed belongs to the datastore with the highest number of IOPs (needs to be explicitly enabled on XenServer)

Datastore Read Latency – Average amount of time for a read operation from the VMware datastore. The value displayed belongs to the datastore with the highest read latency

Datastore Write Latency – Average amount of time for a read operation from the VMware datastore. The value displayed belongs to the datastore with the highest write latency

Datastore Read Rate – Rate of reading data from the datastore. The value displayed belongs to the datastore with the highest read rate (needs to be explicitly enabled on XenServer)

Datastore Write Rate – Rate of writing data to the datastore. The value displayed belongs to the datastore with the highest write rate (needs to be explicitly enabled on XenServer)

Min Free Space on Datastore – Amount of free space available on the most occupied datastore

NIC Usage – Sum of data transmitted and received across all physical NIC instances connected to the host

By default, the grid is sorted by CPU Usage in descending order.

The following additional functionality is offered by this report:

The folder selection dropdown allows for focusing the result of the report on a folder in your ControlUp organization. By default, data for the entire organization is shown.

The metrics dropdown allows to choose what metrics to display – average, minimum or maximum. By default, the average metrics are shown.

Any host name can be clicked to display the resource consumption trends of the selected host by linking to the Hosts Trends report

All columns can be sorted by clicking on the column header.

All columns can be filtered by clicking the filter icon in the column header.

The number of items displayed in the grid can be controlled by using the “items per page” dropdown at the bottom of the grid.

The objective of this report is to allow the administrator to see the rate of Windows errors recorded on computers in the organization and how these errors are distributed throughout the month. In addition, the report lists what the top Windows errors are.

The grid shows the frequency of different errors in other organizations, to be used as reference for determining the priority of addressing the cause and symptoms of each error.

This report answers questions such as:

What are the most common Windows errors across my organization?

What computers suffer from these errors?

Do I have a problematic server?

Have recent configuration changes made to the environment caused any new issues?

The objective of this report is to allow the administrator to analyze applications resource consumption for most used applications during the selected time period (last week by default). This report will answer questions such as:

What is the most used application?

My top applications resource consumption

Are there resource usage differences between different versions of the same application?

In this report, the data is calculated in advance so the dates are predetermined and the results show on a weekly basis (Monday to Monday).

The data grid in this report displays the following details for every user session:

Application name – Process image name

Application version – Product version as recorded in executables’ properties

Peak concurrent instances – Highest number of processes used in the selected time frame

Average CPU usage – Average CPU used by processes with this image name and version on all managed computers

Average Memory Consumption – Average RAM consumed by processes with this image name and version on all managed computers

Average Read I/O Usage (IOPS) – Average amount of read I/O operations (file, network, and device) generated per second by all processes with this image name and version on all managed computers

Average Write I/O Usage (IOPS) – Average amount of write I/O operations (file, network, and device) generated per second by all processes with this image name and version on all managed computers

Average Total I/O Usage (IOPS) – Average amount of (read + write) I/O operations (file, network, and device) generated per second by all processes with this image name and version on all managed computers

Total Instances – Total number of processes with this image name and version that ran on all managed computers

Total Duration – The total period of time during which those application instances were run

Average Duration – The average period of time during which each of those application instance was run

Unique Users – Total number of users that executed the processes with this image name and version

Unique Computers – Total number of machines on which this executable ran

By default, the grid is sorted by logoff time in descending order.

The following additional functionality is offered by this report:

Any application name can be clicked to display the usage details over time.

All columns can be sorted by clicking on the column header

All columns can be filtered by clicking the filter icon in the column header

The number of items displayed in the grid can be controlled by using the “items per page” dropdown at the bottom of the grid

The objective of this report is to allow administrators to analyze the usage details of an application (e.g OUTLOOK.EXE) or a specific version (e.g OUTLOOK.EXE 15.0.4783.1000) by showing the number of instances that were used in the selected time frame and how many unique users used it. This report answers questions such as:

How many concurrent instances of an application have been utilized in my organization?

What are the peak times during which applications are heavily utilized? Are they recurring, or caused by specific users?

Can savings be driven by procuring less than the utilized amount of application licenses?

How was the CPU affected by users launching a business application at 4:00 PM?

Can slowness reported by a user around 9:00 AM be attributed to a resource bottleneck caused by the user’s applications, or to other activity on the same server?

The lower grid gives more details about users who actually used the selected application:

User Name – Name of the user running a selected application

Total Instances - The total number of application instances that were run by a user in the selected time range

Total Duration (hours) - The total period of time during which those application instances were run by the respective user

Average Duration (hours) - The average period of time during which those application instances were run by the respective user

The following additional functionality is offered by this report:

The folder selection dropdown allows for focusing the result of the report on a folder in your ControlUp organization. By default, data for the entire organization is shown.

The computers selection dropdown allows for focusing the result of the report on specific computers in your ControlUp organization.

The application selection dropdown is mandatory. The administrator needs to select the application for which he or she would like to see usage details.

Any data point in the charts can be clicked to reveal the minimum, average, and maximum values for any data series.

When clicked, any data point in the charts will reveal the top consumers for that given point in time.

The objective of the Published Application Usage Details report is to aid administrators in monitoring the use of published applications in their organization. For a selected time frame, site, and published application, the report presents aggregate data about the instances of application use, as well as detailed information about the individual users of the application, how many times they opened the application, and the duration of their sessions.

Examples of questions this report is designed to answer are:

How many users in the organization use application X?

Which users use the application?

Which users use the application the most?

How many sessions of application X are likely to take place simultaneously?

How long do sessions of application X usually last?

How many licenses does the organization require for application X?

Data included in this report is only from Xen Desktop sites which are connected to ControlUp.

Sections of the Report

This report is composed of three sections:

Section 1: Report parameters

Section 2: Aggregate data about usage of the selected application over the selected time period and at the selected site

Section 3: Details about the users of the application and how much they used it over the selected time period and at the selected site

Section 1: Report Parameters

The top section of the Published Application Usage Details report contains controls with which you can select the scope of the report.

Section 1: Parameters section

Select the parameters as follows:

1. Time frame: On the upper-right, choose the period of time to include in the report, as follows:

Option

Description

The last four hours

The last 24 hours

The last week

The last month

The last year

Select this option to open a calendar popup in which you can manually select the start and end time for the report.

Calendar popup

The currently selected time range appears in the From and To fields.

2. Site: From the first dropdown list, choose the site. (If the organization only has one site, it is automatically selected.)

Site dropdown list

3. Application: From the second dropdown list, choose the application.

Each application is identified in the list by two names: its administrative name, which is its unique name on the site, and is only seen by the site’s administrators; and its public name, which is the name that users see (and may not be unique on the site). In the list, the administrative name appears first, and is followed by the public name, in parentheses.

The report is generated automatically when you select the application from the list.

Application dropdown list

Section 2: Aggregate Data

The middle section of the Published Application Usage Details report presents aggregate data about usage of the application over the selected period of time.

Aggregate usage data for the selected time period

The data is summarized on the left side of this section, as follows:

Peak Concurrent Instances: The largest number of instances of the application that ran simultaneously at any time in the time period included in the report

Unique Named Users: The total number of users who opened the application at least once during the time period included in the report

The right side of the section contains a graph that plots the peak number of concurrent instances of the application between the previous data point and the current one. The frequency of the data points depends on how long a time range is included in the report, as explained in the table below.

To see additional details about a data point in the graph, hover over the data point. A tooltip pops up and shows the information. Exactly which information appears depends on the range of time included in the report:

Time Range

Frequency of Data Points

Data in Tooltips

Up to 24 hours

5 minutes

Maximum number of concurrent instances

24 hours to 1 week

½ hour

Maximum, average, and minimum number of concurrent instances

1 week to 1 month

1 hour

Maximum, average, and minimum number of concurrent instances

More than 1 month

1 day

Maximum, average, and minimum number of concurrent instances

Tooltip showing details about a data point

To see the locations of the data points more clearly, hover over the name of the application that appears below the graph. Each data point is then marked with a dot on the graph for emphasis.

Data points emphasized

Section 3: Individual Usage

The last section of the Published Application Usage Details report presents data about individual users’ usage of the selected application during the selected period of time. A summary of this data is presented in a table. Any instance that was open at any time during the selected time period is included in the total, even if it started or ended outside of the time period.

A detailed list of the instances opened by a particular user can be opened from the table. Once it is open, it can also be exported as a CSV file for future use.

Summary of user data

To see a detailed list of the instances opened by a user, in the Total Instances column, click the number of instances listed for that user. A dialog box opens and displays the list.

List of instances for a user

To export the list of instances to a CSV file, select Export. The file is created, and is minimized at the bottom of the browser window.

Tab of the minimized CSV file at the bottom of the browser window

To save the file, in the browser window, click its tab to open it. The file is opened by your computer’s default application for opening CSV files (usually, Microsoft Excel). When the file is open, use the application in which it is opened to save it in the location of your choice.

Exported list of instances open in Excel

Additional functionality of the usage table:

By default, the table is sorted by the Total Instances To sort the table by a different column, click the header of the column. Click the header a second time to reverse the sort order. The column that is currently the basis for sorting has a blue triangle displayed in its header. The sorting direction (up or down) is indicated by the direction the triangle is pointing.

Blue triangle in column header

To filter the table, click the icon in the header of the column by which you want to filter it, and then select Filter. Configure the filter settings, and then select the Filter button to activate them. When a filter is active, the icon in the header is blue.

Blue icon in column header

Troubleshooting

In some cases, the Published Application Usage Details report will not open when you select it from the Insights menu. In these cases, error pages are displayed. The error messages on these pages can help you diagnose the problem.

Error page

The most common problems are:

1. The Xen Desktop from which you are attempting to open the report has not been added to the ControlUp Monitor.

2. The ControlUp Monitor needs to be upgraded to a version that supports this report (version 7.1.1.162 and higher).

The objective of this report is to allow the administrator to analyze resource consumption trends of an application by displaying the performance metrics for different versions over time. This report answers questions such as:

What was the average CPU utilization of OUTLOOK.EXE yesterday?

What was the peak I/O utilization of IEXPLORE.EXE this morning?

This report displays the following charts:

CPU Utilization – displays the average CPU utilization for all selected application instances over time

RAM Utilization – displays the average RAM utilization for all selected application instances over time

I/O Utilization – displays the average I/O usage for all selected application instances over time (network and disk I/O combined)

The following additional functionality is offered by this report:

The folder selection dropdown allows for focusing the result of the report on a folder in your ControlUp organization. By default, data for the entire organization is shown.

The computers selection dropdown allows for focusing the result of the report on specific computers in your ControlUp organization.

The version selection dropdown allows for focusing on one or more versions of the process.

Any data point in the charts can be clicked to reveal the minimum, average, and maximum values for any data series.

When clicked, any data point allows drilling down to the App Usage Details report.

The series names in the charts legends can be clicked to highlight or toggle the series on the charts.

The objective of this report is to allow the administrator to analyze Citrix license utilization over time. This report will answer questions such as:

What was the peak license utilization for XenDesktop during the last month?

Licenses for which products are underutilized?

Do more licenses need to be purchased for any Citrix products?

By default, the chart displays a line for every licensed Citrix product on your license server.

The following additional functionality is offered by this report:

In environments with more than one license server, the first dropdown allows for selecting the server for which the report will show license usage.

By default, one line is displayed in the chart for every licensed product, representing the number of used licenses. By clicking on the series names in the chart legend, you can select different products to display. In addition, you can select to display the total number of installed licenses for every product.

The products dropdown allows you to select which products will be shown in the chart.

Any data point can be clicked to display the average, minimum and maximum license utilization values for the time period represented by the data point.

Changing the Time Zone

When you log into ControlUp Insights for the first time, you are prompted to select your time zone. The time zone you select remains in force for your user account from then on, unless you manually change it, as explained below.

Note: Changing your time zone only affects the display you see when you are logged into ControlUp. Scheduled actions, like periodic data collection, continue to take place at the times at which they were previously scheduled to occur. In addition, if data is exported to CSV files, the times always appear in those files in UTC.

To change your time zone:

In the Insights screen, in the upper-right corner, select your user name. A dropdown menu opens.

Select your user name to open the dropdown menu

Dropdown menu open

In the menu, select Settings, and then select Time Zone. The Time Zone Settings dialog box opens, with the current time zone shown under Time zone.

Time Zone Settings dialog box, with the current time zone shown

Select the Time zone A dropdown list of time zones opens.

Dropdown list of time zones

In the dropdown list, select the new time zone.

Select Save. The selected time zone is implemented.

Note: Implementation may not be immediate, because Insights does not necessarily update the data in its cache at the moment the time zone is changed. In most cases, Insights caches data for five minutes, so the time-zone change should be evident within five minutes. However, the "Environment Assessment" report has a five-hour cache, so a time-zone change may take up to five hours to be implemented in that report.

Setting Up and Managing Single Sign-On

Single Sign-On (SSO) enables users to reduce the number of logins they must perform from a single machine. When SSO is in use, an Identity Provider (IdP) – a central login-management system – works in conjunction with various Service Providers (SPs) to control user access to the SPs’ applications. Users log into the IdP rather than into individual SPs or applications. Then, when they access any of the applications of the managed SPs, the IdP logs them in automatically.

Beginning with Insights version 123, ControlUp Insights has incorporated SSO support, enabling users to access Insights without logging into it directly, once they have logged into a supported IdP. At present, only the SAML 2.0 protocol and the Ping Identity IdP are supported.

Note: Currently, only logins to websites are supported. Because ControlUp’s Console is not web-based, the Console does not support SSO at this time. In addition, if the SSO option is activated for Insights, links in the Console that would normally open Insights are disabled.

In order to set up SAML 2.0 SSO for Insights, settings in both Ping and Insights must be configured, as explained below. Part of the setup process entails copying values from Ping to Insights’ settings, and vice versa. It is recommended to begin with the Ping settings.

Once the SAML 2.0 SSO is enabled, users (other than the user with the “Owner” role, as explained below) can no longer log into Insights from the URL they previously used (https://insights.controlup.com/). Instead, they must use the Ping URL that appears in the Insights SAML 2.0 SSO settings, under Service Provider Login URL.

Note: Any user configuration done in Insights prior to SAML integration is not saved for SAML logins (such as: Bookmarks, Home page, Top Insights customization, Time Zone). Every configuration done when logging in to Insights using SAML will be saved for future sessions. It is recommended that upon logging in to Insights with SAML for the first time, the user will reconfigure Insights to suit its needs.

Note: Although Ping also supports Single Logout (SLO), Insights does not support this option. Thus, users remain logged into Insights until they either manually log out, or are logged out by Insights automatically because of inactivity (after 15 minutes). Similarly, when they are logged out of Insights, they are not automatically logged out of other Ping SPs.

Configuring Single Sign-On for Insights on Ping

Before you can set up SSO for Insights on Ping, you must have a PingFederate server set up and running in your organization. The instructions below explain how to add ControlUp Insights to an existing PingFederate server. For information about setting up and working with PingFederate, please refer to the Ping Identity website (https://www.pingidentity.com).

The Insights assertion URL; the URL to which the IdP should respond to queries from Insights.

Note: When you set up SAML SSO in Insights, this value is generated by Insights, and appears in the Insights SAML settings in the Assertion URL field. You must then copy it, return to this screen, and paste it into this field. You may find it easiest to simply stop configuring the Ping settings at this point, and follow the instructions below for configuring Insights. You can then copy this value from there, return to this location to enter it here, and continue with the Ping configuration.

Select Add. The Insights assertion URL is added to the list, and selected as the default.

Setting Up Single Sign-On in Insights

In order to set up SAML 2.0 SSO for your organization’s Insights site, you must log into Insights with a user account that has the Owner role (the user who created the organization).

To set up SAML 2.0 SSO in Insights:

Install and set up the PingFederate server in accordance with Ping Identity’s instructions, and configure it for Insights as explained above.

Log into Insights with a user account that has the Owner role.

In the Insights screen, in the upper-right corner, select your user name. A dropdown menu opens.

Select your user name to open the dropdown menu

Dropdown menu open

Note: If the user account with which you are logged into Insights does not have the Owner role, the Single Sign-On (SAML) option does not appear in this menu.

In the menu, select Settings, and then select Single Sign-On (SAML). The Single Sign-On (SAML) Settings dialog box opens.

Single Sign-On dialog box

At the upper-left of the dialog box, select the Enable SAML (SSO) Authentication The required fields become available.

Copy the following values from the Ping configuration and enter them into the fields of the same names in the Single Sign-On (SAML) Settings dialog box:

Value in Ping

Field In Insights SSO Settings

Description

X.509 Certificate

X.509 Certificate

The signing key of the SAML IdP, including the keywords -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE----- and -----END CERTIFICATE-----

Assertion URL

SSO Application Endpoint

The URL for logging into the IdP

Virtual Server IDs

Virtual Server IDs

The virtual server IDs configured in the IdP’s connection identifier

The Save button becomes active.

Required fields filled in

Copy the value that appears under Assertion URL to the Endpoint URL setting in the Ping configuration. (This is the URL to which the IdP should respond to queries from Insights.)

Select Save. SAML 2.0 SSO is implemented throughout the organization. Users in your organization should access Insights through the URL that appears under Service Provider Login URL.

Note: Links in the ControlUp Console that would normally open Insights will no longer work from this point on. Beginning with Console version 7.3, after the user’s next login, these links will appear in the Console as disabled.

Managing Single Sign-On Settings

Once SAML 2.0 SSO is enabled in your organization, modifications to the SAML 2.0 SSO settings, and disabling of the feature, can only be performed by the ControlUp user with the Owner role. In order to do so, the Owner must access Insights from its original URL (https://insights.controlup.com/), using the user name and password under which the SAML 2.0 SSO settings were last configured.

Note: If you need to change the SAML 2.0 SSO settings, but you cannot log into the original Owner user account for some reason, please contact ControlUp support.

To modify the SAML 2.0 SSO settings in Insights:

Log into Insights at its original URL, and open the Single Sign-On (SAML) Settings dialog box as explained above.

Modify the values as required.

Select Save.

To disable SAML 2.0 SSO in Insights:

Log into Insights at its original URL, and open the Single Sign-On (SAML) Settings dialog box as explained above.